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OCTOBER Columbus BEHIND him lay the gray Azores, Behind the Gates of Hercules; Before him not the ghost of shores, Before him only shoreless seas. The good mate said: "Now we must pray, For lo! the very stars are gone. Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?" "Why, say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!' " "My men grow mutinous day by day; My men grow ghastly wan and weak." The stout mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. "What shall I say, brave Admiral, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" "Why, you shall say at break of day, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!' " They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow, Until at last the blanched mate said: "Why, now not even God would know Should I and all my men fall dead. These very winds forget their way, For God from these dead seas is gone. Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say" -- He said, "Sail on! sail on! and on!" They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate: "This mad sea shows his teeth tonight. He curls his lip, he lies in wait, With lifted teeth, as if to bite! Brave Admiral, say but one good word: What shall we do when hope is gone?" The words leapt like a leaping sword: "Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!" Then pale and worn, he kept his deck, And peered through darkness. Ah, that night Of all dark nights! And then a speck -- A light! a light! at last a light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world Its grandest lesson: "On! sail on!" Joaquin Miller

SEPTEMBER The Wreck of the Hesperus IT was the schooner Hesperus That sailed the wintry sea: And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear him company. Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, Her cheeks like the dawn of day, And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds The ope in the month of May. The skipper he stood beside the helm, His pipe was in his mouth, And he watched how the veering flaw did blow The smoke now West, now South. Then up and spake an old sailor, Had sailed to the Spanish Main, "I pray thee, put into yonder port, For I fear a hurricane. "Last night, the moon had a golden ring, And tonight no moon we see!" The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a scornful laugh laughed he. Colder and louder blew the wind, A gale from the Northeast, The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed like yeast. Down came the storm, and smote amain, The vessel in its strength: She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed, Then leaped her cable's length. "Come hither! come hither! my little daughter, And do not tremble so: For I can weather the roughest gale, That ever wind did blow." He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her to the mast. "O father! I hear the church-bells ring, O say, what may it be?" "Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"- And he steered for the open sea. "O father! I hear the sound of guns, O say, what may it be?" "Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea!" "O father! I see a gleaming light, O say, what may it be?" But the father answered never a word, A frozen corpse was he. Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, With his face turned to the skies, The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow On his fixed and glassy eyes. Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That saved she might be; And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave, On the Lake of Galilee. And fast through the midnight dark and drear Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept Towards the reef of Norman's Woe. And ever the fitful gusts between A sound came from the land; It was the sound of the trampling surf, On the rocks and the hard sea-sand. The breakers were right beneath her bows, She drifted a weary wreck, And a whooping billow swept the crew Like icicles from her deck. She struck where the white and fleecy waves Looked soft as carded wool, But the cruel rocks, they gored her side Like the horns of an angry bull. Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, With the masts went by the board; Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank, Ho! ho! the breakers roared! At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, A fisherman stood aghast, To see the form of a maiden fair Lashed close to a drifting mast. The salt sea was frozed on her breast, The salt tears in her eyes; And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed, On the billows fall and rise. Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, In the midnight and the snow! Christ save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman's Woe! Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

AUGUST Lassitude I LAID me down beside the sea, Endless in blue monotony; The clouds were anchored in the sky, Sometimes a sail went idling by. Upon the shingles on the beach Gray linen was spread out to bleach, And gently with a gentle swell The languid ripples rose and fell. Mathilde Blind

JULY Nautical Ballad A CAPITAL ship for an ocean trip Was The Walloping Window-blind -- No gale that blew dismayed her crew Or troubled the captain's mind. The man at the wheel was taught to feel Contempt for the wildest blow, And it often appeared, when the weather had cleared, That he'd been in his bunk below. The boatswain's mate was very sedate, Yet fond of amusement, too; And he played hop-scotch with the starboard watch, While the captain tickled the crew. And the gunner we had was apparently mad, For he sat on the after-rail, And fired salutes with the captain's boots, In the teeth of the booming gale. The captain sat in a commodore's hat And dined, in a royal way, On toasted pigs and pickles and figs And gummery bread, each day. But the cook was Dutch, and behaved as such; For the food that he gave the crew Was a number of tons of hot-cross buns, Chopped up with sugar and glue. And we all felt ill as mariners will, On a diet that's cheap and rude; And we shivered and shook as we dipped the cook In a tub of his gluesome food. Then nautical pride we laid aside, And we cast the vessel ashore On the Gulliby Isles, where the Poohpooh smiles, And the Anagazanders roar. Composed of sand was that favored land, And trimmed with cinnamon straws; And pink and blue was the pleasing hue Of the Tickletoeteaser's claws. And we sat on the edge of a sandy ledge And shot at the whistling bee; And the Binnacle-bats wore water-proof hats As they danced in the sounding sea. On rubagub bark, from dawn to dark, We fed, till we all had grown Uncommonly shrunk, -- when a Chinese junk Came by from the torriby zone. She was stubby and square, but we didn't much care, And we cheerily put to sea; And we left the crew of the junk to chew The bark of the rubagub tree. Charles Edward Carryl

JUNE Sea Fever I MUST go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking. I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying. I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over. John Masefield